Waltham DPW workers get a slap on the wrist for theft

Check this out. A Waltham police investigation finds that a few DPW workers have been using city equipment to pave private driveways, and charging the city overtime to do it! According to Mary Murray's article in the News-Tribune, "at least two DPW employees stated it has been longstanding practice to allow city employees to borrow city equipment for personal use."

This is outright theft of city resources and money. But what does the city government plan to do about it? Press charges? Fire the workers involved? Determine how much was stolen, and force the people involved to reimburse the city? Expand the investigation to see if other city resources were stolen, or other employees were involved?

No. "Mayor Jeannette McCarthy said . . . her office will try to discipline the employees."

"Try"? That doesn't sound too confident. And "discipline"? Isn't that another way of saying "do nothing of substance"?

I don't know what kind of personal relationships are at play here, but something is not right when theft of city resources is treated like it's no big deal. The mayor has shown she's willing to stand up to developer greed, but when it's greed by a few rotten apples in the DPW, she doesn't want to do anything of substance.

Also, shouldn't the prosecutors get involved in a case like this, theft of city resources by city employees?